Did You Know that . . . . ?By Robert Strybel, "The Polish Answer Man" Did You Know that . . . . ?

ADid You Know That ........?

Compiled by Robert Strybel, Polish/Polonian Affairs
Writer

ul. Kaniowska 2401-529 Warsaw, Poland

*** Poland’s principal river is the Wisla (Latin and
English: Vistula, German: Weichsel) which has its origin in the Tatra Mountains
down south, winds its way northwards over a distance of 1,047 km (650
miles) and empties into the Baltic around Gdansk.

*** Worth visiting and organizing a bus tour to is the
Polish Museum of America, a rich repository of Polish art, historical
items, folk costumes, military mementos and memorabilia associated with
Kościuszko, Modrzejewska and Paderewski. For more information contact: 984
North Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago, IL60622-4199; phone (773)
384-3352; website: pma.prcua.org

*** According to Polish folk wisdom, only marriages
concluded in months that contain the letter “r” (in Polish) are said to be
successful. That would exclude maj (May), as well as styczen (January), luty
(February), kwiecien (April), lipiec (July) and listopad (November).

*** As seen in the preceding entry, months of the year are
not capitalized in Polish. Neither are days of the week, the names of religious
orders (franciszkanin, felicjanka), city-dwellers (londynczyk,
gdanszczanin) and cars makes (ford, fiat, mercedes), unless they happen to be
the first word in a sentence.

*** Poland’s
national anthem is called as “Mazurek Dąbrowskiego” (“Dąbrowski’s Mazurka”) and
is better known to many by its first words: “Jeszcze Polska nie zginela…” (“Poland
has yet to perish…”).

*** Poland’s
military personnel, police and other uniformed services salute one another with
two fingers, and only two fingers are raised when taking an oath.

*** Kevlar, the DuPont fiber first marketed in 1971 and
used in bullet-proof vests, was invented by Pol-Am chemist Stephanie Kwolek.
Seventy years earlier, the Chicago
police had tested a silk-based bullet-proof vest devised by Pol-Am
Resurrectionist monk, Father Kazimierz Zeglen.

*** Warsaw International Airport is named after composer
Fryderyk Chopin, Krakow has JohnPaulIIInternationalAirport and that in Gdansk
bears the name of solidarity leader Lech Walesa.

*** The Polish flag displayed upside down (with the red
field at the top and the white one at bottom) is exactly the same as the
official flags of Indonesia
and Monaco.

*** The “pierwsze pietro” or first floor in Poland
is the one directly above the ground floor which is called the “parter”.

*** Starka, a brandy known in the Polish-LithuanianCommonwealth since the 15th
century, is made from thrice-distilled grain spirits, aged in old oak barrels
with the addition of linden and/or apple leaves. Traditionally a father would
distill a batch when he sired a son, and roll out the barrel on the boy’s
wedding day.

*** The statue of a fire-breathing dragon is a major
attraction outside the Dragon’s Cave at the food of Krakow’s
RoyalWawelCastle. Less than a third of the
270-meter-deep cave is open to tourists, and its inaccessible corridors include
five tiny subterranean lakes.

*** America’s
biggest Polish festival is the Polish Fest held in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin. It differs from the typical
“mainly polka” events in that its entertainment often includes a folk-music,
classical, jazz, rock and youth stage. See: www.polishfest.org

*** Poland’s
tallest peak is MountRysy
in the High Tatra Mountains which soars to a height of 2,499 meters above
sea-level.

*** Snuff-taking has long been a part of the heritage of
the Kashubians, an ethnic subgroup of farmers and fishermen inhabiting Poland’s
BalticCoast.
When the government banned snuff production, the Kashubs took to growing and
processing their own according to age-old recipes.

*** A distinctly Polish piece of headwear is the visored
four-cornered hat which is part of the regulation dress uniforms of the
military and other uniformed services. It is based on the traditional
“rogatywka” which forms part of the men’s Krakowiak outfit.

*** The world’s largest oil painting is the “Crucifixion”,
painted by Polish artist Jan Styka and first displayed at the 1904 St Louis
World’s Fair, may be viewed in a specially built pavilion at Los Angeles’
sprawling Forest Lawn Memorial Park (cemetery).

*** On the control panel of a Polish elevator 1 is the
American second floor (the floor above the ground floor), the P is the ground
floor (parter) and the 0 is the basement. If you see 00, that means there is a
below-basement level such as an underground parking garage.

*** Officially the hue of red specified for the Polish flag
is vermilion (in Polish: ”cynober”) which is a bright-red pigment made from
mercuric sulfide. The flag with a crowned white eagle on a red shield in the
white upper half is flown by the President of Poland, Polish diplomatic
legations broad and Polish ships at sea.